


Your Memory Invades Everything

by MagpieWords



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, I'm still mad at Steve, Nick Fury Cares, Not A Fix-It, Panic Attacks, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Tony Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, that stupid cell phone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:02:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9892538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagpieWords/pseuds/MagpieWords
Summary: It took a while, but Tony did finally throw away the cell phone Steve mailed him. And that was months ago, so seeing the same type of flip phone shouldn't affect him like this. It shouldn't affect him at all.But it does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I wrote this because I found a deck of cards that looked like a set my ex had given me and it freaked me out. I cope through Tony, which is admittedly not the best way of coping.
> 
> Also I'm still mad at Steve.

It was amazing how Tony could have so much free time, and yet not a moment to ever spare. Without Shield asking for upgrades, with no team to constantly upkeep, only his work for SI was really a true commitment he needed to focus on. Still, he found no time to breathe, let alone something as pointless as eating or sleeping. How could he waste precious minutes sleeping when the sky was about to come crumbling down around him? Never mind how the nightmares still chased away whatever rest his body forced him to take, or how ever bite of food made his stomach roll. No, every moment needed to be filled. With creation, with invention. Was it really work if Tony was doing what he was supposed to love? What he was made for?

So even if he wasn’t really working, he didn’t have time to be thrown back into the jaws of panic at the sight of a cell phone of all things. He was just looking for some old blue prints, something from his Merchant of Death days that he wanted to redesign into a defensive mechanism. If he could make missiles track people, he could make them track other missiles. Reagan’s Star Wars had been great against large scale attacks, but Tony was always good for making things stronger, smaller, and all around better. He’d been absently tapping against the scars on his chest, trying not to miss the tinkering sound of metal that the habit had been bred with, when he found himself on the floor a good ten feet away from the cabinet he’d been searching.

“Boss?” Friday says and it takes Tony a second to realize this isn’t the first time she’s said it.

“I’m fine.” He replies on autopilot, running his mind through what the fuck made him so clearly not fine.

The answer had been dropped on the floor in front the cabinet. An old cell phone, a flip phone more precisely, that just happened to be the same brand and color as the one-

“No,” Tony whispers. Friday, while not as alive as Jarvis was, has the sense to realize Tony is speaking to himself. “I- I don’t want…” That thing was not allowed in his home. He was supposed to be safe here.

Tony had unofficially had his access revoked from the Avengers Compound, and the Tower had been so cavernously empty. With Malibu lost to the sea, the old Stark Mansion had been the only option he could think of. Of course, that house held horrors of its own, so Tony had demolished Howard’s basement workspace, rebuilding deep under the house into his own sanctuary. Not surrounded by heroes out for his head, not a few feet from the crash of cold water, and certainly not inches below the monstrous hole he could still see in the sky. He knew it wasn’t there, but damn it, he could still see it.

Surrounded by warm earth, Tony Stark should not be invaded by the prehistoric excuse for a phone Steve Rogers had sent him.

“I threw it away…” He wished he had burned it, broken it into a thousand pieces and melted it with a welder. He should have taken it apart and rebuilt it into a bastard parody of Steve’s precious shield, sent that back to the Captain instead of returning the one Howard had built. 

“You did, Boss.” Friday wasn’t alive, but she was still a clever girl, “You threw the phone Captain Rogers sent you in the trash when you were at your Avengers Tower office on June 14th 2016 at 2:34 pm.”

It had been a surprisingly quiet moment, especially by Tony’s standards. The phone had sat on the edge of his desk, with that stupid letter, for weeks after Steve sent it. It never rang and Tony certainly never pushed a button on it. Never even looked at it, actually; Tony tried his best to pretend it wasn’t there. Making a move to get rid of it would require acknowledging it. He treated the damaged shield and the blinking light of his voicemails from Ross with the same respect. Fury had been the one to force him to face his demons. Nick always seemed to do that.

“Stark,” the former director’s voice had come over the speakers Tony installed around the old mansion only a day prior, “we need to talk.”

“I wont bother asking how you hacked into my house.” Tony put down a wrench and slid out from under the newly installed kitchen sink. He’d been pleased with himself; the audio intrusion hadn’t even surprised him. Flinching didn’t count as surprised anymore.

“Your firewalls need work.” There was more to that sentence than tech talk, but Tony’s head hurt just trying to process how much Nick knew about his damages.

“I don’t want to talk.” Everything hurt too much to process anything else.

Nick hadn’t responded right away, then there was a sigh. Not the disappointed exasperation Tony had grown used to over the years of testing the man’s patience with reckless Avenger-ing. No, this was not a sound from Director Fury. This sigh was the same as when Uncle Nick found out Tony’s own heart was poisoning him.

“Rogers needs his shield back. The Black Panther did a number on it, can you patch it up?”

Another beat of silence and then Tony scoffed. “Can I patch it up. Fury, that vibranium is child’s play for me now. I’ll mail it in a week.” The demolition had been completed by that point, but the new basement/bunker wasn’t inhabitable yet. The shield stayed at Avengers Tower, so Tony started towards the front door. “Now get out of my house, Eye Patch.”

Midway through the buffing process, Tony realized he didn’t mind rising to Nick’s obvious bait.

The shield left him, the voicemails got answered, and once the blinking light turned off, Tony looked at the old cell phone. His office had been so quiet. He picked it up and threw it in the trash bin with the same lack of feeling he’d toss out an apple core with. He thought, maybe, if he pretended not to care about it, it wouldn’t affect him anymore.

“That is not the same phone, Boss.” Friday clarifies again.

Finally able to move, Tony crawls across the floor to the fallen phone. It feels heavier than the other one. Flipping it open, the keypad is different too. He even goes so far as to turn it on. There’s no contact labelled ‘S.G.R.’, only a few bedmates from the early 2000s as well as Rhodey’s work number. His fingers hover over the call button, but Tony closes the phone. The LED screen, through cracked, says it’s nearly four in the morning. Rhodey would be sleeping. Besides, the last time he dealt with one of Tony’s problems, he’d lost his legs. 

Pepper only talks to him for business. The team doesn’t talk to him at all. Jarvis is dead.

The phone slides across the smooth floor until it sneaks under an old arm chair in the other corner of the room. Tony leans his back against the filing cabinet, head pushing closed the still open drawer. His knees find their way up to his chin. The underground room remains silent.

He’s pleased with himself; the wave of emotions doesn’t break him. Crying doesn’t count as breaking anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> For future note, I don't usually write angst without happy endings.


End file.
